Early Year Foundation Stage Information

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Profile is a report of your child’s development and achievement at the end of their Reception year.

The EYFS Profile is broken down into seven specific areas of learning:
•Communication and language
•Physical development
•Personal, social and emotional development (PSE)
•Literacy
•Mathematics
•Understanding the world
•Expressive arts and design

Within each of these areas, there are specific Early Learning Goals.

The EYFS is broken down into four age bands, called Development Matters bands: 16-26 months, 22-36 months, 30-50 months and 40-60 months.

For each age band, and each area of learning, there is a series of statements relating to a child’s development: for example, ‘notices simple shapes and patterns in pictures’.

Assessment is ongoing throughout the EYFS, but the official EYFS Profile for each child is completed in the final term of Reception. The assessment takes place through teacher observation of children’s learning and development as they take part in everyday activities, and planned observations, where teachers spend time on a specific task with an individual child or small group.

There are three separate achievement levels within each Development Matters age band:
•Expected: your child is working at the level expected for his age
•Emerging: your child is working below the expected level
•Exceeding: your child is working above the expected level

Your child’s teacher will award one of these levels for each of the seven EYFS areas of learning.

On leaving the Foundation Stage at the end of Reception, a child is considered to have a ‘good level of development’ if they have achieved at least the expected level in the Early Learning Goals in all aspects of PSE, Physical development, Communication and language, Literacy and Mathematics.

To ensure that EYFS levels are consistent within schools and nationally, the Profile is subject to moderation. This happens both internally, for example with other teachers and the headteacher, and externally, with the Local Authority taking a sample of a school’s Profiles to moderate. Allenby was externally moderated for its judgements in 2016 and attends termly moderations with local schools.